HONOURABLE

CHAP. V.

ONOURABLE age is not that which ftandeth in length of time, nor that is measured by number of years; but wisdom is the grey hair unto man, and unspotted life is old age.

WICKEDNESS, condemned by her own witness, is very timorous, and being preffed with confcience, always forecafteth evil things: for fear is nothing else, but a betraying of the fuccours which reason offereth.

A WISE man will fear in every thing. He that contemneth small things, fhall fall by little and little.

A rich man beginning to fall is held up of his friends : but a poor man being down, is thruft away by his friends. When a rich man is fallen he hath many helpers: he speaketh things not to be spoken, and yet men justify him: the poor man flipt, and they rebuked him; he spoke wifely, and could have no place. When a rich man speaketh, every man holdeth his tongue; and look, what he faith they extol it to the clouds ; but if a poor man fpeak, they fay, what fellow is this?:

MANY have fallen by the edge of the fword, but not fo many as have fallen by the tongue : Well is he that is defended from it, and hath not paffed through the venom thereof; who hath not drawn the yoke thereof, nor been bound in her bonds; for the yoke thereof is a yoke of iron, and the bands thereof are bands of brafs: the death thereof is an evil death.

My fon, blemish not thy good deeds, neither use uncomfortable words, when thou givest any thing. Shall not the dew affuage the heat? fo is a word better than a gift. Lo,

is not a word better than a gift? but both are with a gra

cious man.

BLAME not, before thon haft examined the truth; understand first, and then rebuke.

IF thou wouldst get a friend, prove him first, and be not hafty to credit him; for fome men are friends for their own: occafions, and will not abide in the day of thy trouble.

FORSAKE not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend is as new wine; when it is old, thou fhalt drink it with pleasure.

A FRIEND cannot be known in profperity; and an enemy cannot be hidden in adverfity.

ADMONISH thy friend; it may be he hath not done it; and if he have, that he do it no more. Admonish thy friend; it may be he hath not faid it, or if he have, that he speak it not again.. Admonish a friend; for many times it is a flander; and believe not every tale. There is one that flippeth in his fpeech, but not from his heart; and who is. he that hath not offended with his tongue ?

WHOSO discovereth fecrets, lofeth his credit, and shall never find a friend to his mind..

HONOUR thy father with thy whole heart, and forget not the forrows of thy mother: how canft thou recompense them the things they have done for thee?

THERE is nothing fo much worth as a mind well inftructed.

THE lips of talkers will be telling fuch things as pertain not unto them; but the words of fuch as have understanding are weighed in the balance. The heart of fools is in their mouth, but the tongue of the wife is in their heart. To labour, and to be content with that a man hath, is a fweet life.

BL

BE in peace with many; nevertheless, have but one counfellor of a thoufand.

Be not confident in a plain way.

LET reafon go before every enterprize, and counsel before every action.

CHAP. VI.

THE latter part of a wife man's life is taken up in curing

the follies, prejudices, and falfe opinions he had contracted in the former.

CENSURE is the tax a man pays to the public for being

eminent.

VIRY few men, properly speaking, live at present, but are providing to live another time.

PARTY is the madness of many, for the gain of a few. To endeavour to work upon the vulgar with fine fenfe, is like attempting to hew blocks of marble with a razor.

SUPERSTITION is the spleen of the foul.

He who tells a lie is not fenfible how great a task he undertakes: for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one..

SOME people will never learn any thing, for this reason, because they understand every thing too foon.

THERE is nothing wanting to make all rational and difinterested people in the world of one religion, but that they fhould talk together every day.

MEN are grateful in the fame degree that they are refentful.

YOUNG men are fubtle arguers: the cloke of honour covers all their faults, as that of paffion, all their follies.

ECONOMY is no difgrace; it is better living on a little, than out-living à great deal.

NEXT to the fatisfaction I receive in the prosperity of an honeft man, I am best pleased with the confufion of a rascal, WHAT is often termed shyness, is nothing more than refined fenfe, and an indifference to common obfervations. THE higher character a perfon fupports, the more he should regard his minutest actions.

EVERY perfon infenfibly fixes upon fome degree of refinement in his difcourfe, fome measure of thought which he thinks worth exhibiting. It is wife to fix this pretty high, although it occafions one to talk the less.

To endeavour all one's days to fortify our minds with learning and philosophy, is to spend so much in armour, that one has nothing left to defend.

DEFERENCE often fhrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy, as the fenfitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger.

MEN are fometimes accufed of pride, merely because their accufers would be proud themselves if they were in their places.

PEOPLE frequently use this expreffion, I am inclined to to think fo and fo, not confidering that they are then speaking the most literal of all truths.

MODESTY makes large amends for the pain it gives the perfons who labour under it, by the prejudice it affords every worthy perfon in their favour.

THE difference there is between honour and honesty, feems to be chiefly in the motive. The honeft man does that from duty, which the man of honour does for the fake of character.

A LIAR begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.

VIRTUE fhould be confidered a part of taste; and we should as much avoid deceit, or finifter meanings in difcourse, as we would puns, bad language, or falfe grammar..

DEFERENCE

CHAP. VII..

EFERENCE is the most complicate, the most in- direct, and the most elegant of all compliments.

He that lies in bed all a fummer's morning, lofes the chief pleasure of the day: he that gives up his youth to indolence, undergoes a lofs of the fame kind.

SHINING characters are not always the most agreeable

ones.

The mild radiance of an emerald, is by no means lefs pleafing than the glare of the ruby.

To be at once a rake, and to glory in the character, difcovers at the same time a bad difpofition, and a bad taste. How is it poffible to expect that mankind will take advice, when they will not fo much as take warning?

ALTHOUGH men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own ftrength. It is in men as in foils, where fometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.

FINE fenfe and exalted fenfe are not half fo valuable as common sense. There are forty men of wit for one man of fense: and he that will carry nothing about him but gold, will be every day at a lofs for want of ready change.

LEARNING is like mercury, one of the most powerful and excellent things in the world in skilful hands; in unskilful, moft mischievous.

A MAN should never be ashamed to own he has been in